Virginia General Assembly passes online course requirement for high school students

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Per a new statewide requirement passed by Virginia's General Assembly, all high school students in the state--beginning with ninth-graders in fall 2013--pursuing standard or advanced studies diplomas must take an online course or part of a course in order to graduate.

A similar requirement was previously proposed by Virginia Beach School Board before being shelved over concerns that it would penalize students without computers at home, though the state's requirement differs in that the courses can be non-credit bearing and/or taken as a digital unit in a brick-and-mortar course.

Virginia now joins Michigan, Alabama, Florida, and Idaho as the fifth state to require virtual learning credit for high school graduation.

From the article:

About a year ago, the Virginia Beach School Board considered a requirement that all students take an online course before graduation. It'd be a good experience, advocates argued-another feather in graduates' digital caps. Opponents worried that it would penalize students who didn't have computers at home. Eventually, board members tabled the proposal. But now, it doesn't matter. The General Assembly has turned a similar idea into a statewide requirement. ...